US Presidential Election Debate

The first US Presidential TV Debate was intriguing. For me it was not much from the showdown between Romney and Obama but actually from the response from those who saw it. I get back to that in a short while, but generally I thought Obama got this one. He was more temperate and articulate in his views. Romney as actually very defensive, edgy, uneasy and just kept interrupting the moderator and Obama. Come-on Romney, what we wanted were facts and strategies not being a sleazy showman.

Romney's view on the deficit being intergenerational is just WRONG. Check out my previous blog post on the issue to get a clearer picture. This is just Bush-type politics which brought America into many disasters from unending wars, a catastrophic financial and economic crisis. He was also uneasy on how he was going to create jobs and also didn't have a balanced approach to cut the deficit. On health-care, Romney was inconsistent because at the same time he wants to repeal Obama-care, he didn't have any other credible plan to offer. Obama-care is based on a health-care law he implemented in Massachusetts where he was Governor. If he's criticizing it (Obama-care), then he also is criticizing his own health-care initiative in Massachusetts. But no, he thinks the Massachusetts one is great.

Like I said at the start of this post, I becoming no fan of these debates, not because of the substance brought out from these encounters but because of the responses given by viewers. The majority of these responses are just nonsense and unintellectual. People seem to be concerned with style over substance. The style people are concerned about is a bad-boy type of image, being unnecessarily aggressive over nothing. Schoolboy tactics indeed. That's why the majority who think Romney won state their reason for this view to be style he put across, and his persistence to annoyingly force his views across. If you ask them as a result of Romney's "outstanding" performance, what message they got, you don't get any coherent response.

The emphasis of style over substance in debates in western countries misses the point on why these debates should be held. These debates aren't some kind of wrestling smackdowns were one can cheat right in your faces and goes on to win because the referee didn't notice the cheating. These debates aren't some erotic love-making sessions but a serious thing, where discussions of national importance are to be articulated.

You can't just simply vote for someone because they are good debaters. Good as in style not substance. This is a nation's future we are talking about. The British got this message in a hard way. While over enthusiastic about David Cameron and especially Nick Clegg because they somehow "won" the TV debates, they are now stuck with these guys in a recessionary economy. From the UK debates it was clear that Clegg and Cameron lacked substance than Gordon Brown but hey, when you fall in love with this style thing, you will set yourself for a fall.

I hope the American debate isn't a boon for Romney because in my opinion that guy isn't presidential material.  His philosophy isn't supported by facts on the ground and if he wins the US elections, the US and the world will be bound for a disaster similar in proportions to the younger Bush one.